[15] Other companies included Davenport and Meyer,[16] the latter of which operated LM Radio, based in Mozambique, then under Portuguese rule.

[17] Following the dissolution of the FBC in 1964, the Government of Southern Rhodesia attempted to take control of RTV through the RBC, whose chairman, J.M.

[18] This prompted criticism by MPs, one of whom, Vernon Brelsford, moved a motion in the Legislative Assembly deploring the proposed acquisition.

[20] Prime Minister Ian Smith argued that control of television was necessary for "winning the war for the minds of men", and would save it from falling into the hands of "communist sympathisers".

[25] Umtali (now Mutare) only received television in 1972, by which time it was estimated that more than 90 per cent of the white population had access to the service.

[26] In November 1965, the white minority government of Ian Smith issued a Unilateral Declaration of Independence, under which censorship of broadcasting and the press was imposed, and key posts at the RBC were gradually filled by supporters of the ruling Rhodesian Front party.

[31] The British Government, which had denounced UDI as illegal, began broadcasting BBC programmes into Rhodesia by building a radio relay station in Francistown, in the then Bechuanaland Protectorate, now Botswana.

[38] In 1975, an Ndebele language service operating out of Bulawayo, known as Radio Mthwakazi, was established, using the "Big Bertha" transmitter previously used to jam the BBC's broadcasts from Francistown.

[40] In order to counter this, the RBC installed an FM network, while the government distributed FM-only receivers to chiefs and village headmen in the Tribal Trust Lands.

[33] It also ran campaigns promoting FM-only receivers, pointing out that they were exempt from the annual licence fee, and how short wave broadcasts were affected by static noise and required retuning between frequencies throughout the day.

[45] However, the Muzorewa government did not gain international recognition, and under the terms of the Lancaster House Agreement, the country officially reverted to British rule in December 1979 as Southern Rhodesia, with Lord Soames as governor.

[48] A number of other senior BBC staff were sent to the country to advise Lord Soames on election broadcasting, and also help the ZRBC with their preparations for independence.

[60] ZBC planned to introduce a subscription television service as early as 1993, but due to government and funding issues, the project was scrapped in 2000.

[66] Other locally produced programmes included the Shona language drama Gringo Ndiani?, the video music show Mutinhimira weMimhanzi, later known as Ezomgido, the talk show Madzinza e Zimbabwe, dealing with traditional culture, and Psalmody, a Sunday morning gospel music programme.

[68] In a reflection of the new ZANU PF government's political leanings, Robert Mugabe, previously described only as "a terrorist leader", was now described as "Comrade Prime Minister".

[69] Those white journalists remaining came under pressure not to give coverage to certain topics that detracted from the new state's socialist outlook, including unrest in Poland, then under communist rule, the British royal family and the late Chinese communist leader Mao Tse-tung, with those objecting being dismissed, including Derek Sones, who in 1981 was denounced by his editor, Grey Tichatonga as a "good desk-man for a colonialist capitalist news organisation" and an 'unregenerated and unrehabilitated colonialist who was unable to change his ideas to fit in with socialist and revolutionary ZBC".

[77] During the 2002 presidential elections, the nightly news bulletin Newshour gave extensive coverage to the rallies of the ruling party, amounting to a quarter of airtime.

On the national languages desk readers include Nqobile Malinga, Patience Machokoto, Taboka Ncube, Faith Nare, Lucy Ngosolo and Caroline Sithole.

The anchors are Nomalanga Vuma, Theophilus Chuma, Ian Zvoma, Butler Nhepure and Jonathan Marerwa.